Flintshire - Towns and Parishes

The list below reflects the Church in Wales (Anglican) parish structure in historic (pre-1974) Flintshire - this is the format which is recognised by the Flintshire Record Office and the National Library of Wales; and by the two reference works "Parish Registers of Wales" and "Parish Registers of Clwyd". In general, "daughter" or "district" churches have not been included in the list unless it is known that they maintained separate registers from those of the parish church. Where applicable, details of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century restructuring of each parish have been given.
Historically, the (Anglican) Church in Wales was an integral part of the Church of England - i.e. the "Established" Church. During the nineteenth century, the number of Anglican churches in the diocese of St. Asaph rose from 151 to 326; and in the ancient county of Flintshire alone, 29 new churches were built, and 30 were "restored" - which was often a euphemism for partial or total demolition, followed by rebuilding. Some of the new churches remained as district churches or chapelries within their existing parish; but in the majority of cases, the ancient parishes were drastically restructured to create new parishes centred around the new churches.
In Flintshire, this reorganisation had run its course by the beginning of the twentieth century (with the exception of the parish of Shotton, which was created in 1921); and the Anglican parish structure in Flintshire has remained essentially unchanged for over 100 years.
Despite this wave of new church-building, the influence of the Anglican Church continued to decline; and in 1920 it officially ceased to be the "State" or "Established" Church within Wales. By that time, at least half of the people of Flintshire had become "adherents" of the various nonconformist denominations; and it is therefore important to note that information about the nonconformist half of the population is not likely to be found in the Anglican parish registers.
Information about nonconformist chapels has been extracted from "The Statistics of the Nonconformist Churches for the year ending December 31st, 1905", which was submitted to the Welsh Church Commission. As far as possible, the information has been shown on the parish page(s) appropriate to the locations of the chapels.
Unfortunately, only a relatively small number of nonconformist records have been deposited at the Flintshire Record Office and the National Library of Wales - it is hoped to include a list of these records, with permission, at a later date.

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